


Volume

by unseenbox



Series: Hogwarts Community Radio [6]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Background Slash, Crossover, Fake Episode, Gen, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unseenbox/pseuds/unseenbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A crisis at the library is resolved; A statement from the Merfolk regarding the Swakloks is translated; A host contemplates the lack of Assistants lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Volume

What lurks at the bottom of the sea? I don’t know, you’d have to ask them. Welcome to Hogwarts.

The rampaging, unreadable books in the library have finally been defeated, thanks to the efforts of First Year Tamika Flynn. This morning, all of the books in the Charms section began to weep ink and possibly blood, as opposed to their usual showers of silver sparkles. Tamika Flynn determined that the weeping was caused by a misfiled book from the restricted section, and was able to coax the wayward book back to its proper place by feeding it sections of her Transfiguration assignment. We here at Hogwarts Community Radio commend Tamika Flynn for all that she’s accomplished, and hope that the points she gained for her bravery outweigh the points she may lose for not having that assignment.

The Swaklok horde -- comprised of thin, bipedal birds that make high pitched, inappropriate noises past midnights every second friday from October through January -- have arrived at the lake, as they have been since the start of October. As usual, this has prompted roars of outrage from many denizens of the lake from here, and are awaiting confirmation from Assistant Lydia. Students in Ravenclaw Tower, or any of Hogwarts other fine, lofty spires, can already hear the Swakloks’ squawking, albeit faintly. 

Simone Rigadeau, who has been studying many magical beasts alongside her Herbological studies, made a statement earlier, which reads: “It is possible the noises are a product of our ears listening for any other sounds in this vast, cosmic dark besides our own.” Full disclosure: Simone Rigadeau is not a student, nor a teacher, and is in fact a transient who lives in one of the collapsed secret hallways in this school.

Assistant Luna, who sold tickets for official Swaklok viewing parties, has not made any statements at all. In fact, she hasn’t shown up here since Educational Decrees Twenty Four and Twenty Five were passed. But, hey, people get busy, it just happens, and you’ve gotta accept it. 

Mike Ogbourne, Sixth Year Gryffindor, lost twenty points from his house yesterday, after an attempt to sabotage the Slytherin Quidditch team went awry. It seemed his attempt to conjure some sort of mud slick in the middle of practice required _a little_ more effort, and instead of summoning the slippery substance he intended, he instead created a tiny, unmemorable puddle. For shame, Mike Ogbourne. _For shame._

The alternate Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the fourth floor is still closed this week, following an incident during Professor Umbridge’s fifth year Slytherin lesson. While most students did their silent reading as required, or otherwise discussed the detentions other house members received this week, Daphne Greengrass was caught reading a muggle comic inside of her textbook. In the ensuing struggle to confiscate the banned material, her wand misfired, which then caused the entire classroom to turn a dappled shade of pink and smell vaguely of sunflowers and foxglove. The colors have been fixed, but the aromas remain as strong as ever, leaving the custodial staff baffled. 

The merfolks’ statement, regarding the arrival of the Swakloks who have swarmed around the lake, has been translated by Assistant Lydia, who has, again, received docked points and a detention for being out after curfew. The statement reads: “Oh. Those birds again? We just block up our ears with seaweed when they show up. There’s good eating on them, too, you know. Try the wings, they’re delicious! And only vaguely poisonous to human beings.” 

The Swakloks, which number somewhere in the low twenties at last count, have been seen eating some of the fish and other plant life around the shallows of the lake in between their various calls. The Swakloks, magical beast experts claim, are migratory birds, and prefer to roost in cooler climates during the winter and warmer ones during the summer, particularly Morocco. 

Despite the sounds of Swakloks, which only raise in volume as the night progresses, I can’t help but feel that it’s been… quiet lately, here at Hogwarts. And, I know, every night can’t have a personal editorial, there’d be no way we could cover all the news that way. But, and I certainly don’t mean to complain about a lack of peril here, usually at this point in the term, some sort of massive, community wide crisis occurs, and we can coast on that for the rest of the year. Last year we had the Tri-Wizard Tournament, the first in generations, and we even spoke to Hiram McDaniels, a five-headed dragon who was in consideration for the First Task, but was rejected due to an incident of tax fraud that turned up in his background check. 

And there was that horrible incident, three years ago now, when the Chamber opened and no muggle-born or friend of muggleborn could feel safe walking the halls at night, certain that behind every wall lurked petrification and death. I’ve always felt that if you didn’t have _at least_ five people theorizing that you were the Heir of Slytherin, you were really missing out on a key part of the experience! 

Nobody seems to be talking this year, though. Not the same way. There’s isolated pockets of it, sure, and every other discussion of the Ministry of Magic -- now a banned topic on this station and one I will drop in a moment, I promise -- starts a heated debate about the return of a _certain_ dark wizard who shall remain nameless. Some of these heated discussions have involved fists, while others have involved wands shoved into places they don’t belong, and still more have resulted in detentions beyond reckoning.

But these discussions aren’t the kind you whisper about in the back of the classroom, while the person you were just talking about walks in. And, while I’m sure we’re in about the same amount of peril we always are, perhaps _slightly_ more on a day to day basis, I yearn for the days when abject terror could pull us together, instead of splitting us apart.

And now, a word from our sponsors:

It’s never enough for you. You always want more, more, more. So you take more, as much more as you can stand, but it’s still not enough. Once you have enough, the lengths you went to just to hold onto a little bit more won’t matter. Everything’ll turn out alright, you’ll see. Just one more step up will do. It certainly can’t hurt, any more than the other thousand steps you’ve taken. You can almost see the things you need receding, but that won’t matter much, once you have what you’ve always wanted.

You have a good wand, but you could have a great one. You have a good broomstick, but you could have an even greater one. You have everything you’ve always wanted, but there’s always something more to want. And one day, while you’re sitting in your pile full of things you wanted at the time but don’t, and the pile full of things you thought you wanted but never did, it’ll hit you how many things you have, but none of the things that make you happy are there. 

This message brought to you by GalloLoans.

Khoschekh, this studio’s cat of unknown origins, the one who spends a lot of time hanging around the men’s bathrooms and has _the_ most adorable meow, will be collecting donations in the Great Hall all day tomorrow! He’ll hold them in this little basket that Intern Brad built, only using the smallest traces of black magic, and if you give him a chocolate frog, he’ll play with it a little bit before putting the card away, seriously, it’s the cutest thing! All donations will be used to fund Hogwarts Community Radio, so give what you can! 

According to our research, some of which might consist of opening a window and leaning out to face the lake, the Swakloks have just reached peak loudness. If you’ve made it this long without reaching for a noise-blocking implement of choice, you’re in the clear! If you haven’t, the hospital wing will be receiving any students who have developed ruptured eardrums during the night, or else can’t stop themselves from repeating the fowl language demonstrated by the horde in class. Most treatments for the former will only take about a half an hour, depending on the severity of the damage, while only soap based treatments will work on the latter. 

Although the question remains: what good does loudness do, if nobody is around to hear it? Is it possible that we’re all just shouting up into a void that considers our existence or non-existence to be entirely without meaning? When we speak and someone turns to face us, is it really our voices that they’re hearing? Or are we merely trying to find some relief from the unceasing noises that cluster in our heads, carried from place to place and conversation to conversation, unceasingly?

Listeners? Are you there? Or am I imagining all of this -- am I just one single, solitary voice in the night against the background hum of the universe? Would anyone be able to tell the difference at all?

Possibly real, possibly dreamlike beings of Hogwarts, I give you: [the weather.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwjt3Y6J1cc)

The warbles of the Swakloks have faded. Soon, they will retreat to the Forbidden Forest, where they nest during the day. And, as their sharp, piercing cries slowly lower in volume and pitch, so too does mine. The Swakloks have left us, this time doing very little harm, except to a single student’s woolen sweater, and possibly to some of our ear drums. Perhaps next time, things may change. Perhaps changes afoot in the Forest will cause them to haunt the lake for gossip more often. Perhaps the Merfolk, and other denizens of the lake, will grow tired of these interlopers, and seek to get them removed, or at least start some kind of land rental program.

Who knows? Certainly not I, nor any one of us, even if there is no us to speak of. True, some of our more advanced divination students may make that claim, but as the rest of us do, they rely upon interpreting the splotchy patterns that stain the porcelain cup of the future. 

The grounds are quiet now, just like our grand, imposing Hogwarts. Just like the studio, here at its Community Radio station. So many of our Assistants are gone this year, whether they’ve quit the show, or found other things, maybe more important things, to do with their time, or if they’ve simply gone to the Hospital Wing, like many Assistants before them. But whether they’ve gone forever, or only until their bones heal, we’ll still be here, waiting for their return, broadcasting until inky black night turns to slim silver daybreak. 

Stay tuned next for: a complete list of words that sound like orange when they’re mispronounced.

Good night, Hogwarts. Good night.


End file.
